June 25, 2021

June 25, 2021

We spent the morning travelling south across western Pennsylvania, skirting Pittsburgh. After almost three hours we arrived at Fallingwater, easily Frank Lloyd Wright’s most iconic house. He designed it in the late 1930’s for a wealthy Pittsburgh family looking for a summer home in the mountains to escape the urban steel mill pollution.

The house interior just recently opened again after the Pandemic. We signed up for a tour weeks ago. In pre-Covid times the wait list could be a year in the summer. The site is crowded but still a fourth of normal attendance. We are feeling blessed. We were able to move up our tour by an hour; plus the weather is dry and delightful.

The house is constructed of locally quarried limestone in combination with rounded concrete forms. Our group of six starts with a visit to the family room. It is a great room with lots of windows and a polished stone floor. Like all Wright homes, the design is organic with lots of built-ins. We then moved into the kitchen. It looks dated but was probably ultra-modern in its age.

The bedrooms are not on the tour right now because of Covid. Instead we walked outside and uphill to the garage and guest/servants quarters. We finished by walking away from the home for the classic Fallingwater view. The family wanted the house built near a waterfall they played in. They got their wish. The home cantilevers over the stream. Beautiful!

A few miles south of Fallingwater, we made a brief stop at an overlook of Ohiopyle State Park. Here the Youghiogheny River flows over a series of waterfalls as it makes a tight U-bend. This is also where the Great Allegheny Passage ‘rail to trail’ passes over the river.

We then continued an hour southwest to Friendship Hill National Historic Site. This is a large farm and house perched on a cliff above the Mongahela River. It was the home of Albert Gallatin, a Swiss immigrant who got into politics by being a moderating voice during the Whiskey Rebellion. He rose to become Secretary of the Treasury for thirteen years under Thomas Jefferson. He financed the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark’s exploration of it.

Friendship Hill was built in 1789 but was expanded greatly over the years. We gave ourselves the tour of the sprawling three story, spartanly furnished home. We then walked out to a gazebo that has a great view of the Mongahela River far below.

We left heading south to Morgantown, WV where we caught the freeway east along the Maryland panhandle. We stopped in Cumberland, MD only to learn all the hotels are booked. Apparently city folk (like the Fallingwater owners) enjoy coming to the mountains on the weekend. We keep moving, finally finding a hotel in Hancock, MD only to discover our accommodations have lost power. Our luck has run out.

Before having dinner, we check out the C&O Canal and the Potomac River that both pass right by downtown Hancock. This is the narrowest part of Maryland. Less than two miles wide!